Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Like everyone whose life has been altered by a traumatic brain injury, Carol Stanley sought answers and needed help. Her son Jason was 19 years old when he suffered from a TBI after being assaulted by three other men in Auburn, Alabama. Despite being shuffled between 3 hospitals and examined by a multitude of doctors, Jason wasn’t diagnosed with TBI until weeks after his injury. He was x-rayed and treated for other injuries, including a fractured skull and jaw, loss of hearing, nausea and imbalance. His most serious injury, however, went undetected and untreated.

Weeks after being released from the ICU in Montgomery, Jason grew increasingly and uncharacteristically depressed. He knew something must be very wrong, that maybe the doctors had overlooked something. Carol, a resident of Montgomery, Alabama, finally took her son to see a neuropsychologist, who uttered the words “traumatic brain injury” for the first time. Carol had never heard of TBI before, so she began seeking answers.

Unfortunately, Carol seemed to get only more questions. Why didn’t Jason’s doctors find this TBI? Why did they send him home with a serious brain injury? Didn’t they at least know to look for brain trauma, especially after such a violent physical assault to the head? If the doctors don’t know about TBI, who does?

By connecting with other victims of TBI through the Alabama Head Injury Foundation (AHIF), a support group for TBI patients and their families, Carol realized that there was a dangerous lack of knowledge and resources in her state.

“What I found is that we’re all in the same boat. We all have bits and pieces of information about TBI because we want to know what our loved ones are going through. We research and we advocate, but there is not one, central place to go for information about TBI,” Carol said.

The lack of TBI awareness extends throughout the medical system itself, Carol said. Her own frustrating experiences in dealing with TBI were echoed by many people she met in a recent AHIF support group meeting.

According to Carol, one prominent government official from Montgomery was visiting Chicago when his wife fell down a flight of stairs and received a serious head injury. “I am completely convinced my wife would have died had this happened in Montgomery,” the man told Carol, thankful that his wife’s accident occurred in a city known for its TBI research and treatment programs.

The lack of TBI awareness, especially throughout the medical community, is not confined to Montgomery or even to Alabama. It’s a serious problem everywhere, as actress Natasha Richardson’s brain injury demonstrated so publicly earlier in the year. After hitting her head in a skiing accident, Richardson just wanted to go back to her hotel room to rest. Neither she nor the emergency personnel who initially treated her thought the injury would involve a fatal TBI until it was too late.

Nor do TBI survivors really know what they are up against. Carol asked one man at the AHIF meeting what his TBI experience was like. The man sustained his injuries in a motorcycle accident. Carol asked him if he suffered from depression and anxiety like her son Jason, who developed the symptoms a couple of months after the assault. The man told Carol that yes, he did struggle with the same symptoms. However, he never realized they were a direct result of his brain injury.

“It’s really unfortunate that we have to get all of our information from other victims of TBI and their family members at the support group,” Carol said.

TBI is a leading cause of death and disability in the U.S. Every year, more than 1.5 million Americans receive a TBI. To date, two percent of the U.S. population – some 5.3 million Americans – live with disabilities caused by their TBI. 1,500 Alabamians are disabled every year because of TBI injuries.

Although some progress is being made with TBI awareness, Carol believes we have a long way to go.

“When I walked into the AHIF meeting, what I found was unexpected. All walks of life, all different stages and degrees of TBI. Some family members were there. Some patients were there, young and old. Car and motorcycle wrecks, near drowning, accidents, physical assault, ” Carol said.

“All of this is going on but there’s not enough information and resources consolidated in one place,” she said.

Not including war injuries (TBI is considered the “signature injury” of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans), vehicle crashes account for half of all TBI cases in the U.S. Falls account for 21%, followed by violent assault at 12% and sports or recreational injuries at 10%.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 4:20 pm and is filed under News, brain injury, safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.